1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to configuring data storage and more particularly relates to automatically modifying data storage configuration.
2. Description of the Related Art
A data processing system often comprises a plurality of data processing devices such as servers, mainframe computers, and computer workstations. The data processing devices may employ internal data storage devices such as solid-state memory and hard disk drives to store data. In addition, the data processing devices may employ one or more external data storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical storage devices, magnetic tape drives, and the like to store data. Each data storage device may be configured with one or more physical partitions.
The data storage devices may be organized as one or more logical volumes wherein each logical volume may comprise a file system. The file system typically comprises a plurality of logical directories that may include a plurality of sub directories. Each directory may specify the location of data on the data storage device and also comprise pointers to one or more directories and one or more data files. An operating system such as the AIX operating system from International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”) of Armonk, N.Y. or the Linux operating system may employ the file system to store and retrieve data including software instructions and digital information.
A logical volume may comprise one or more logical partitions. Each logical partition may comprise a physical partition on a data storage device. The logical partitions and/or physical partitions comprising the logical volume are the storage configuration of the logical volume.
A data processing system operator may modify the storage configuration of the logical volume to accommodate changing data storage requirements. For example, the operator may accommodate increased data storage requirements by adding logical partitions to the logical volume. Alternatively, the operator may remove logical partitions from the logical volume to reduce the data processing system resources employed by the logical volume.
Unfortunately, the data storage requirements for the file system may change too rapidly for the operator to modify the storage configuration to both satisfy data storage requirements and most efficiently employ data storage device resources. In addition, the operator may be unable to effectively monitor and modify the storage configurations for a plurality of logical volumes residing on the data processing system. The operator may also be unavailable to monitor and modify the storage configurations off-shift and on weekends. Finally, using an operator to monitor and modify storage configuration is inherently costly.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an apparatus, system, and method that automatically modify a storage configuration. Beneficially, such an apparatus, system, and method would modify the storage configuration to match data storage device resources with data storage requirements.